


In this family, homeschooling is vital

by KitkatDragon



Series: Family Truly Is The Greatest Adventure [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Homeschool, School, gotta learn somehow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25897033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitkatDragon/pseuds/KitkatDragon
Summary: Let’s be honest, with all the adventuring, the Duck Boys don’t have time to go to a regular public school.
Series: Family Truly Is The Greatest Adventure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879285
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	In this family, homeschooling is vital

A man known as Tristan Devitt once said, “homeschooling might raise a few eyebrows, and that’s okay.” He probably had no idea just how right he was when it came to Mrs. Beakley’s... _ unusual _ way of homeschooling her granddaughter.

Webby was by no means a regular kid, what with her special training from the former S.H.U.S.H. agent, preparing the young duck for pretty much everything.

The Duck boys, however, still attended regular public school. When they first moved in with Scrooge, it was the beginning of summer, so school hadn’t prevented the triplets from adventuring with the older man.

Thing is, Scrooge didn’t see the point in the kids wasting their time in boring old classrooms when they could go on ‘educational’ field trips with him. So he had started to take the boys out of school. A lot. But since Launchpad was the one who picked the boys up after school, Donald never found out.

Until he was called to the school because the teachers were worried about Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s absences. He was not happy, to say the least.

“For the last time, adventuring is not a valid excuse to take the boys out of school!” Donald yelled. Scrooge frowned and tapped the floor with his cane angrily.

“Ya don’t understand, Donald. These types of things can’t wait for weekends or breaks. Besides, the boys learn more on these adventures than they do in stuffy old classrooms. And they enjoy themselves. Don’t ya boys?” Scrooge asked the three boys, who sat on the bottom step of the staircase, watching their uncles go back and forth. 

“Don’t bring them into this!” Donald huffed as Dewey opened his mouth to say something.

“I have to. They’re the reason we’re even arguing!” Scrooge shot back. Webby, who had joined the boys a few minutes ago, rested her head on her hands as she watched the argument, a confused frown on her face.

“I don’t understand why they have to argue,” Webby whispered. “Why don’t you guys just have Granny teach you?”

Dewey’s face lit up at the idea, but Huey and Louie looked uncertain. Louie glanced at his phone quickly before he replied. “I don’t know, Webbs. Mrs. B is pretty strict. Having her as our teacher could lead to way more homework than usual. And she lives here, so she can actually make us do it.”

“Yeah, and while I love you guys, I like being surrounded by my peers. Classmates mean more diversity and statistically increases the chances of learning something in a new and creative way,” Huey added. Dewey rolled his eyes and elbowed his red-clad brother.

“The peers who tease and mock you because you’re way smarter than everyone?” Dewey asked. Huey huffed but said nothing. “And Lou, Webby always has plenty of time for adventures. When do you ever see her doing homework?”

“Never, I guess,” Louie shrugged. “How does your grandma teach anyway, Webby?”

Webby beamed, excited at the chance to talk about her schooling. “Well, first off, Granny doesn’t have homework per se. Most of her lessons are about learning stuff first hand. For literature, she has me write stories to check punctuation, grammar, and stuff like that. I also get to act out certain scenes from plays, and books, which kind of counts as theater as well.

“Science involves baking and lots of experiments. Uncle Scrooge has a lab in the house that I like to use. And all of the written archives about his adventures as well as the historical artifacts in the house helps me learn history.”

“And what about foreign languages? Art? Math?” Huey pressed.

“Scrooge has a lot of books on foreign languages. I like reading Latin, but I’ve been practicing a few others as well. For art, I get assigned a project, which really means I had to create art pieces and Granny helps,” Webby paused for a second, then smirked at Louie. “And for math, we use money to help us cover basic equations. Not to mention-”

Louie cut her off, a sly grin on his face. “You had me at ‘money’, Webbs. Now we just gotta convince Uncle Donald.”

The children turned their attention to the adults, only to find Scrooge and Donald staring at Webby. She looked up at them curiously. “Why are you both looking at me?”

“I never considered homeschooling. Sure, the boys and I moved around but that was during the summer,” Donald stated. Then he glanced at his nephews. “Might be better if they had more individual attention, anyways.”

In truth, Donald had known for years that public schooling wasn’t the best thing for any of his boys. But he’d always had to work and didn’t have time to homeschool them or pay for a good tutor. The school didn’t have advanced courses, so Huey was left bored and unchallenged in his class. Dewey had ADHD and the teachers weren’t very good at accommodating his needs. 

As for Louie, he needed extra help with math, but wasn’t great at asking for assistance. So he tended to be sarcastic to avoid the issue, and teachers just labeled him the ‘problem child’, often sending him out of the room. All that did was put Louie even further behind than he already was. 

“It would solve both of our problems,” Scrooge admitted after a moment of consideration. “But we have to convince Mrs. Beakley first.”

“That won’t be a problem, sir.”

Everyone turned to see Mrs. Beakley as she walked down the staircase. The children hurried to move out of her way and allow her into the foyer. She ruffled Webby’s hair before she addressed Scrooge and Donald.

“I’d been meaning to bring this up anyways. It’s more practical for the boys to learn at home with all the adventuring this family does,” Mrs. Beakley stated. “Besides, the children already spend most of their time together, so why not have them learn together?” 

“Excellent!” Scrooge exclaimed, smiling smugly at Donald, who huffed in annoyance. “I have a friend on the school board who owes me a favor. I’ll get him to send the necessary paperwork and we can have the boys out of the school before the week is over.”

“Now hold on, I didn’t technically agree to-”

“Please, Uncle Donald!” Dewey cut off his caretaker, getting on his knees. Louie followed suit, and after a moment of contemplation, Huey copied his brothers. “We’ll do the work, and this way we can spend more time with you too! After all, you’re the best!”

Donald rolled his eyes at the obvious flattery, yet he couldn’t bring it in himself to say no when he saw the pleading look in the kids’ eyes. Even Webby had clasped her hands and gotten on her knees. “Oh alright. But you listen to Mrs. Beakley or else there’ll be no more adventures.”

“We won’t let you down, Uncle Donald,” Huey vowed. Dewey nodded his head in affirmation while Louie just shrugged. 

“Yay! I’m gonna have classmates!” Webby squealed as she threw her arms around the boys. “This is so exciting!”

“Ugh, you’re acting like Huey. How are you this excited for school?” Louie wiggled out of the hug, shoving his hands in his hoodie. Webby just giggled and looked at her grandmother excitedly.

Mrs. Beakley smiled softly. While she definitely thought Huey, Dewey, and Louie could learn more effectively and efficiently with her as their teacher, she had first come up with the idea because of Webby.

Her one regret from homeschooling Webby was that she’d had no one to learn alongside her. This left her socially awkward and rather lonely growing up. Ever since the triplets and Donald had come to live at the manor, she’d improved drastically. If being able to have fellow students her own age would make Webby happy, then Mrs. Beakley was more than happy to teach her boss’ great-nephews.

ーーーーー

Homeschooling was probably the best thing that could have happened to the Duck boys. Not only did they have more time for adventuring, but it was actually kind of fun. Mrs. Beakley was strict, yet more understanding than any of the teachers the boys had ever had before.

“This is so much fun!” Webby squealed after their first week of homeschooling was done. “I’m so glad Mr. Duck let you guys do this.”

Indeed, she was glad. It had been weird at first, having other kids by her side during her granny’s lessons. It was even weirder because the attention wasn’t always on her like it used to be. But she didn’t have a problem with that at all, and once she grew accustomed to it all, she had been thrilled to learn side-by-side with the three boys she had come to see as her brothers. 

“Me too. I have to admit, Mrs. Beakley has an interesting way of introducing new topics,” Huey agreed. He glanced down at his notebook, filled with his translations of various ancient hieroglyphics found on maps and artifacts spread throughout his great-uncle’s mansion. “I haven’t been bored once this week.”

Huey had thought it would be hard to transition to this new type of schooling, but Webby was there to help just as much as Mrs. Beakley. And it was kind of nice to not have kids tease him. Well, his brothers did, but not in the way his old classmates did simply because he was smarter than them.

“I have,” Louie said. In his hands was a sheet of math problems that he had managed to complete on his own, with an A written on the top in green ink. “But I guess it’s better than being bored  _ and _ yelled out.”

He was kidding, of course. Even without the money, Mrs. Beakley had been there every step of the way when Louie was learning math, and while she didn’t exactly  _ like _ his sarcasm, she didn’t yell at him even once. Getting an A on a math assignment for the first time in years filled Louie with a sense of pride.

“No kidding. Mrs. Beakley even lets me stand up. None of the old teachers did that,” Dewey added as he messed with a fidget cube the housekeeper had given him. It did wonders for his ADHD, letting him walk around and mess with the cube while learning simultaneously. 

She even gave him and the others short breaks in-between subjects, something Dewey was very appreciative of. It was like she could read the middle triplet’s mind and knew exactly how to keep him focused and relaxed. 

What he and the other children didn’t know was that Mrs. Beakley had done extensive research as she prepared the lessons for her new students. Reading up on how to challenge Huey so he wasn’t bored, by making sure his work was advanced without being too difficult. Discovering the best ways to accomodate students with ADHD, and even consulting a specialist to meet Dewey’s needs. And she even learned about new techniques to teach math so she could try the ones that seemed to suit Louie. 

Not that she told anyone. Yet somehow Donald had figured it out, because he pulled her aside on Friday, after the weekly lessons were over, and thanked her. 

“I’m not used to having people try and understand the boys, especially not the schools they’ve gone to. So thank you.”

“Oh please. Like it was any trouble,” Mrs. Beakley replied. “I should be the one thanking you. It’s only because of your boys that Webby seems happier than she’s ever been during lessons.”

“Seems like your granddaughter’s idea worked out for all of them then,” Donald said, only to feel someone yank his hand. He looked down and saw his boys and Webby looking up at him. “Yes?”

“We wanna show you what all we did this week!” Dewey exclaimed as he shoved a piece of paper into Donald’s hand. It was a messy drawing of the boathouse and the dock, with Donald, the boys, Webby, and Beakley on the boat while Scrooge and Launchpad stood on the dock. “The assignment was to draw or make something important to us.”

“Yeah, and look, Uncle Donald” Huey raised his notebook up for Donald to see. Louie looked at the ground as he raised up his math worksheet while Webby just smiled and grinned at the boys’ accomplishments.

“Aw, boys, that’s great,” Donald bent down to their level before addressing each of them. “Your drawing looks amazing, Dewey. I’m glad you got to do something interesting, Huey. And I’m so proud of you, Louie. We ought to put all that on the fridge.”

“Can we put it on the fridge on the houseboat?” Huey asked. “So you can see it every day.”

“Of course we can,” Donald assured the eldest triplet before he glanced over at Webby. “Is there anything you wanna show me, Webby?”

She beamed excitedly as she pulled her backpack off and looked through it for a second before bringing out a tiny replica of the mansion made out of popsicle sticks that were painted, along with a bunch of glitter thrown onto it.

“I made the mansion because everything and everyone I love lives here!” Webby smiled. “And look, your houseboat is in the back. The little beads are all of us. You’re the dark blue one, Granny is purple, the boys are red, green, and light blue, I’m pink, Launchpad is orange, and Scrooge is white.”

“Good job,” Donald stated. He looked up to say something to Beakley, almost like she wanted him and the kids to have a private moment. Which she probably did. “I don’t know if that’ll fit on the fridge door though.”

“I actually thought of that, already,” Webby smiled sheepishly as she pulled something else out of her bag. “The boys said you put stuff on the fridge when they did something great so I thought maybe I could take a picture of my replica for you. If you want.”

“It’ll look nice with the boys’ work,” Donald reassured the girl as he wrapped her in a quick hug. Well, it was supposed to be quick but Dewey joined in, followed by Huey and Louie. 

Donald was grateful that he and Scrooge had that argument, if it meant that all his kids were happier than they’d ever been. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t still mad about Scrooge taking his kids out of school without permission, and the sailor still needed to talk to his uncle about that. But that’s a story for another day. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I binge-watched both seasons of Ducktales (2017 version) and have way too many ideas, most of which I may never post. But I figured I might as well write some stuff anyway. Plus...I just wanted fluff!  
> \- Kitkat Out!


End file.
